Perkins Coie expanded its white collar and investigations practice team with the addition of two attorneys making the move from inside counsel back to private practice.
Rick Hosley and Chandra Westergaard joined the firm earlier this month from kidney care giant DaVita, Inc. They said their combined prior experience, in-house perspective and dovetailing expertise will help them make their new practice group into a powerhouse in the Rocky Mountain region.
Hosley and Westergaard joined Perkins Coie Sept. 4 and have now settled into their new digs — just across the street from their old ones. The two offices even share parking, Hosley said.
The two made the move as a pair in a continuation of a strong working relationship and a combined practice that they said will allow them to better serve corporate health care clients.
“Working with Chandra, we became a tight-knit team and wanted to continue that in the private space,” Hosley said. “I thought putting our practices together and building a partnership would make us a formidable team to help clients. There is no other group with the same level of government experience and in-house experience [and] that sets us apart in the Denver marketplace.”
Hosley brings with him experience as a U.S. Marine Corps officer and judge advocate — during which time he participated in combat operations and worked with tribal leaders and local officials to reestablish government functions in Western Iraq and served as a polling site observer during the 2005 Iraq Constitutional referendum. He has also worked in the U.S. Department of Justice as an assistant U.S. attorney in the districts of Montana and Colorado and as a white collar litigation partner at Hogan Lovells. At DaVita, he served as associate general counsel and vice president in charge of litigation.
Westergaard served as assistant general counsel and head of investigations for DaVita and was responsible for some of the company’s most important legal and regulatory matters, including internal health care compliance investigations, DOJ and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services investigations and enforcement actions and False Claims Act qui tam litigation. Prior working at DaVita, she was a member of Crowell & Moring’s health care group.
“At DaVita, we had the opportunity to work with a lot of outside counsel, and the model we saw work most successfully was a team approach,” Westergaard said. “Having a couple partners with different skill sets and putting those together gave [us] a better perspective.”
Seeing how that model could be effective from the in-house counsel perspective made them believe they could make a successful team in private practice.
And now, as outside counsel, they both believe their experience at DaVita makes them especially qualified to provide counsel to corporate clients. They said in their experience, they felt they would be hit with a “relentless amount of information and issues” on a daily basis, and they relied on outside counsel to assist in the decision-making process.
“We can provide the guidance, support and assistance to in-house lawyers that folks who have never been in-house just don’t grasp and understand,” Hosley said. “We know and understand the pressures a company is under. We can work to make their lives better on the inside.”
Westergaard echoed the sentiment and said their in-house experience will allow them to help in-house lawyers juggle their demands. “It’s one thing to give guidance and another thing to execute on that and put it into practice for the business. Now we can take that experience and help other clients with that,” she said.
DaVita is a client of Perkins Coie’s, but Hosley said it was actually his personal connection to Markus Funk, national chair of Perkins Coie’s white collar and investigations practice, that brought them to the firm, not the client connection. Hosley had previously worked with Funk through their work at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and their prior experience as well as Funk’s reputation convinced him it was a move that would elevate their practice as well as Perkins Coie’s capabilities.
“We (Westergaard and I) wanted to go as a team and a partnership,” Hosley said. “We wanted to go to an AmLaw 100 firm. We’ve both spent a significant amount of time before C-Suite executives and the board of directors at DaVita. It takes a firm like Perkins Coie to provide services to to those types of companies.”
“Rick and Chandra are true white collar all stars with substantial white collar pedigrees,” said Markus Funk, Denver-based firmwide chair of Perkins Coie’s white collar and investigations practice. “Their industry-leading, in-house, government and private practice experience will make them sought-after advisors and counselors and will significantly contribute to our group’s regional and national strength.”
In addition to Funk, the Denver office’s white collar defense and investigations practice includes retired Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice Mike Bender and counsel Chelsea Curfman.
Hosley and Westergaard will continue focusing their practice largely on the health care industry. Hosley said the industry continues to be a major focus for government enforcement from qui tam lawsuits — lawsuits brought by whistleblowers on behalf of the government under the False Claims Act — and from individual whistleblowers.
“I think unlike any other teams that operate in this space in Denver, and maybe around the country, Chandra’s knowledge of the regulatory framework, government investigations, and my government experience and trial experience, we have the ability to conduct investigations, interface with relators’ counsel, and if it goes to trial, we have the deep trial chops to fight the case in the courtroom,” Hosley said. “Add on top of that the ability to know and understand how publicly traded companies work … you’re not going to find folks who have that personal experience in all of those worlds.”
— Tony Flesor